Week 4

Well, it was a disappointing week unfortunately. I read just the 3 times although I did clock 13 flyers in that time, including a good 3 pager for Corney and Barrow outdoors on Saturday. It's been significantly cooler in Phoenix the last few days which of course made things easier (no sticky pages).I have now decided to work on the Learn to read schedule immediately, I am scheduled to start the 18 week course on the week of June 30th.To be ready for that I need to be able to read something that is 10 pages long on Saturday July 5th. The remainder of the training for that week is comfortable; 3 pages on Tue/Thu night, 5 pages on Wednesday night and 5 pages on Sunday. My plan therefore is to read the 3/5/3/5 pages on Tue/Wed/Thu/Sun respectively and then build my long read words up week by week to hit the 10 pages that weekend.My outdoor reading will be switched to Tue/Thu nights (3 pages both) to start and then in a couple of weeks I will also add the Sunday 5 flyers read. I of course need to increase my outdoor stamina quickly, so that I don’t fall asleep and will use a local benches in Scottsdale, AZ on a Saturday to do that. Linked to a store called the XXX Den they sell between 10 and 20 page magazines and encourage me to read at 8-8.20 words per min pace on a Saturday which is perfect for my training.I want to get my staying awake stamina up to that level quickly and may use the 'B' reading team for this course who read at 10 words per min pace to do this. This is significantly slower than my intended subway pace but will help me with outdoor reads.So, I have 6 weeks to increase my long read wordage from 6 pages to 10 pages which is very doable. I intend to read 6 pages this weekend then increase by .5 to 1 words each week dependant on how strong I feel to hit a comfortable 10 page magazine long read by the end of June without sleeping.Missing my long read this week will likely hurt me, I can't afford to do that again especially when I start in my 18 week training schedule.

Week 3

The big news this week is that I have decided on a 'formal' reading program for the subway challenge. Right now I am reading 4-5 times a week with 2 long reads and 3 shorter reads (due to tiredness). I'll keep this up for another 6 weeks before switching to http://www.begintoread.com/learn-to-read/?source=google+learn+to+read&gclid=CLfAy47-vZYCFQ2Y1QodZSPmygI don’t know any of the details of the website, as I’m unable to yet read it. However, I’ve been told that this quote appears ‘Our Daughter's Reading Score was Eight Times Higher’ and that compares well with my average pace of 7m46s per page, which is a little quicker than what I hope to achieve for the at the end of this challenge.My base training will set me up to be more than comfortable reading at the levels set in the guide, my main goal in the next 6 weeks will be gaining eye strength and not falling asleep; right now I am dehydrating too quickly and struggle to concentrate more than 1 page without needing a sleep. I found a reading club that meets on Saturday's so I will use them for my long read training once more into the rhythm. They read between 10-20 pages at 8.20 pace so that is perfect for my long read training.Last week was good, I read 5 pages on benches Tue/Thu night, and another 6 pages on Saturday. I also read a 5 page magazine flyer pull out on Wednesday outside but, struggled (see above!).This week has started well, for cross training I today read 16 page's of a comic in the YMCA pool. Tomorrow and Thursday I will read 5 pages again, and again a 5 page flyer outdoors on Wednesday. Saturday will likely be a 7 minute read, with another 5 page flyer outside on Sunday.We have record highs in Phoenix right now so outdoors reading is a challenge (you know the problem I have with sticky pages) but, I need to do it. My hope is that, if I can get into the groove of reading in zero humidity, NYC will be a breeze come November!!! Posted by Brian Cook